Christa Pike is now speaking in complete sentences just over a month after a failed execution attempt in Tennessee, her lawyers disclosed on Wednesday.
The 50-year-old, who is a convicted murderer, has shown signs of improvement in her mobility since she unexpectedly survived after receiving two doses of the lethal injection drug, pentobarbital, on September 30. One of her attorneys shared this information with TMZ.
Reportedly, she can walk better on her own, and her speech development has significantly enhanced.
However, her medical team remains vigilant, closely monitoring both her cognitive and psychological health, her lawyers mentioned.
It may take more than a month to understand the long-term effects of the botched execution, according to one of her lawyers.
Pike was supposed to be the first woman executed in the state in 200 years but ended up being the first prisoner ever to survive a lethal injection.
Following the failed execution, she was quickly taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and was able to speak within a week.
Initially, her attorneys were told she was brain dead and would soon be removed from life support. But the next day, “much to everyone’s shock, including my own and her medical team, Christa woke up and began conversing,” attorney Randy Spivey recounted this month.
When she regained consciousness while on a ventilator on October 6, her first words were, “Where am I and who are you?” She then inquired about the family of her victim, Colleen Slemmer, Spivey said.
After the botched execution, she dealt with health issues like a blood clot in her arm and pneumonia, and she was unable to eat.
Spivey noted that Pike’s hands were “extraordinarily” swollen, resembling a ballooned surgical glove.
Pike was discharged from the hospital on October 10 and returned to the prison where she has spent over 30 years.
The death-row inmates were sentenced to death for the brutal torture and murder of Slemmer, a classmate, during a fit of jealousy in 1995.
Following the unsuccessful execution, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee suspended all executions in the state for the rest of the year and tasked former U.S. attorney Ed Stanton with conducting an independent investigation into the incident.
The prison warden, Frank Strada, resigned after the execution failure, stating it was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” during Stanton’s review process.
Pike’s legal team has argued for the governor to reduce her sentence, asserting that she has “suffered punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty.”
